Panic Station in Review

This week’s Cracked LCD is a review of Panic Station, a complete hot mess of a paranoid co-op game that can either be an extraordinary example of metagame psychology and player interaction or a tumbledown wreck of sloppy rules writing, gamey mechanics, and narrative disengagement. I think it’s utterly fascinating, even when it doesn’t work. It’s divisive and has as many haters as lovers and I think that’s a great thing. Particularly in a medium where people go into reviews more worried about whether or not they should buy the game rather than where its successes, failures, and innovations lie as a work. But yeah, think John Carpenter in board game form.